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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22520881">knocked me off my feet again</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicandlight/pseuds/magicandlight'>magicandlight</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The States [71]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hetalia: Axis Powers, Statetalia</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>AK &amp; HI are gay-lesbian solidarity, America is a Good Dad, Bullying, Gen, Homophobia, Racism, this sounds really bad but those two are pretty mild</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 11:10:08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,596</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22520881</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicandlight/pseuds/magicandlight</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Alfred knows his kids, which is why he feels a hundred percent sure of what went down. "And what," he pauses slightly for dramatic effect, something he might have gotten from Cal or Brooke or they got from him, "Is your policy on bullying?"</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Alaska &amp; Hawaii (Hetalia), America &amp; USA States (Hetalia)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The States [71]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/788712</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>71</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>knocked me off my feet again</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>now:</em>
</p><p>The phone rings and Alfred jumps at the opportunity to get a break from doing paperwork with Sera.</p><p>He loves her and all, but paperwork. "Hold on a sec, Sera. I gotta answer this."</p><p>Sera rolls her eyes as he brings the phone up to his ear.</p><p>"Hello?"</p><p>"Is this Mr. Alfred Jones?"</p><p>"Yes?"</p><p>"I'm calling from your children's school, please come pick up your children. They're being suspended."</p><p>Alfred paused. "I'm sorry, what?"</p><p>"Please pick the children up immediately."</p><p>The call ends with a sharp click, and Alfred just stares for a moment.</p><p>Sera is looking at him with concern. "Alfred?"</p><p>"I have to go pick one of the kids up from school- they didn't tell me who. I'll be back in a while, 'kay?"</p><p>Sera nods quickly. "Yeah, you have to do that, I can handle this, alright?"</p><p>✩</p><p>Alfred's thinking it's going to be some combination of Isabel, Talia, or Diego.</p><p>Talia had been suspended before for punching a boy who snapped her bra straps, and Isabel had some issues with boys not understanding that when she said no, it didn't matter how short her cheer skirt was. He'd pulled them out schools before, even called Addison once to bring legal action to the table.</p><p>It's fully prepared to hear his kid's side, raise hell if appropriate, and then possibly take them out for ice cream, depending on where their actions fell on the morality scale.</p><p>He hadn't even considered that he'd walk into the headmistress's office and see Lani and Sasha sitting in those office chairs, Sasha with a split lip and Lani's tights with rips in the knees.</p><p>Two other kids sit two chairs down.</p><p>Alfred clenches his jaw.</p><p>The receptionist smiles tightly at him. "If you could have a seat, the headmistress will be with you shortly.</p><p>✩</p><p>The office feels packed, with four children and five parents crammed into it.</p><p>One of the mothers- the blonde kid's mom- shoots Alfred a look and mutters something to her husband.</p><p>"As you know, we have a zero-tolerance policy for fighting. As it was found that-" The headmistress shuffles her papers. "Braginsky-Jones and Jones-Hoapili started the fight, they will receive three extra days suspension." She manages to mangle both of their surnames so that they're nearly unrecognizable.</p><p>Murmuring from the blond kid's parents again.</p><p>Alfred knows his kids, which is why he feels a hundred percent sure of what went down. "And what," he pauses slightly for dramatic effect, something he might have gotten from Cal or Brooke or they got from him, "Is your policy on bullying?"</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>before:</em>
</p><p>This is Sasha's eleventh new school. There'd been a handful of gap years and years of homeschool tossed in, but you never forgot the feeling of being the new kid.</p><p>He can't imagine what it would be like to be alone, to not have Lani next to him, or Isabel and Talia and Diego in the High School building across the courtyard.</p><p>He and Lani mostly have their core classes together, but Sasha has Spanish when Lani has Chorus, and he has Band when she has Art.</p><p>Every single class, they make them stand up and introduce themselves. Name, age, interesting fact, questions from the class.</p><p>In English, they get: "Why do you have different last names if you're siblings?"</p><p>In Social Studies, "Why are you white when she's," The kid looks at Lani, and fails to place her ethnicity. "Not?"</p><p>And so on.</p><p>"We were adopted," Lani says cheerfully each time while Sasha struggles not to roll his eyes. "I'm from Hawaii, and Sasha is from Alaska."</p><p>Spanish is okay. Sasha's not fluent, not like he is with Russian or even Hawaiian, but he's well past the beginning level the rest of the class is at. The teacher talks about moving him into a higher grade level, maybe even sending him for a class in the high school building.</p><p>They have lunch with Talia, but she explains apologetically that her schedule's messed up and her lunch period will change. </p><p>It's fine. Sasha still has Lani. </p><p>✩</p><p>They've transferred in a month into the semester because of issues with paperwork. Specifically, for lack of any other honest term, issues forging their paperwork. </p><p>They were personifications. They didn't have birth certificates or social security numbers. They got vaccinations, of course, because they could still get sick, but those were done by Austin and Charlie in the upstairs sitting room, not at a hospital. They didn't have medical records. No adoption records. </p><p>This isn't much of a problem. The government itself falsifies their records. For all intents and purposes, their papers are real. </p><p>However, being a month late into the school year is a problem. </p><p>In English, Mrs. Bills tells them they don't have to worry about the novel unit they're doing, but since they can't participate in the class discussions, well-</p><p>"Alden, come sit in this empty desk up here so they can sit in the back, since they're not involved in the book discussion."</p><p>Alden does it without a word, but he scowls at Lani and Sasha as he's separated from his friend. His friend scowls at them too.</p><p>✩</p><p>Their math teacher calls their names on the roll and mispronounces both Braginsky and Hoapili every day for a week. </p><p>✩</p><p>Lani smiles at the A on her English paper marked in red pen, leaning to see that Sasha has the same thing on his own, before holding out her fist for a customary fistbump. </p><p>Mrs. Bills smiles at them and continues handing back papers. "Well, Alden, looks like you might have some competition."</p><p>✩</p><p>"Where's your brother?" Amy from math asks. </p><p>Lani looks up from her homework. Without Sasha, she's just been doing her homework during lunch. It was only for today and tomorrow, though, so it was okay. "He's in Russia visiting his dad."</p><p>Amy frowns at her. "Why aren't you visiting your dad in Russia too, then?"</p><p>"Sasha's visiting his <em>other</em> dad."</p><p>Amy makes an 'aha' noise. "Like his biological dad?"</p><p>Well. Technically. "Yeah."</p><p>"His real dad lives in Russia?"</p><p>"Yeah, he works the same job my dad does."</p><p>"Do <em>you </em>go visit your bio parents?"</p><p>Lani's tired of this kind of invasive conversation, and decides to end it as quickly as possible. "My mom's dead."</p><p>That always shuts people up, and it doesn't fail this time. </p><p>Amy makes her way back to her own lunch table, and Lani pretends she doesn't hear them gossiping. </p><p>✩</p><p>It starts small. Taps on the shoulder and turning to see everyone looking innocently at the board. Snickers behind them in classes. </p><p>Then it escalates. Lani's Hawaiian flag pin is taken off her bookbag during one of their classes. Sasha gets tripped during at a football game after a marching band halftime performance and slams his knee into the bleachers. </p><p>Sasha's science homework goes missing. Lani's pencil box is 'accidentally' knocked off her desk and stepped on. </p><p>And then there's Lani's art project. </p><p>✩</p><p>Her project, the painting she's poured hours of class time into, is ruined.</p><p>Unsalvageable.</p><p>Sickly purple paint drips off the table.</p><p>"Oh, I'm so <em>sorry</em>, Lani." Eric simpers.</p><p>Lani closes her eyes. <em>This is nothing</em>, she reminds herself. This is nothing. She has been hurt before, truly hurt, and there is nothing this thirteen-year-old trust fund baby can do to her that would ever hurt as much as it hurt to get the burn scars on her back, or hear people call Sasha a commie terrorist in the seventies. This is nothing.  </p><p>She's not entirely sure she manages to convince herself.</p><p>✩</p><p>When Sasha sits down beside her in math, his bookbag is ripped. </p><p>Lani sets her hand on his shoulder for a few seconds, reminding him that they're in this together. </p><p>When Ginny asks what happened, they lie. </p><p>✩</p><p>It's nothing. They survived the sixties and the seventies. This had nothing on that. Alfred had to pull both of them out of school then, and this is nothing like that. They can handle it. This isn't bullying, just some annoyances. They had dealt with real bullies before, and these two kids are just annoyances. </p><p>✩</p><p>Aidan had made the lesbian sticker she has on her water bottle, and most of the other ones too. Sasha and her had first pick (well, first pick after Charlie) of anything he put on his website, so Sasha had a bunch of enamel pins on his bookbag and Lani had a lot of stickers. </p><p>Lani was proud, okay? She wouldn't hide who she was. She knew sometimes the world would turn on people like her- Adam's broken nose had proved that, but she wanted to believe that the world was better than that. That times had changed. </p><p>So when she hears the whispered slur, she freezes completely. </p><p>Her heart falls to the floor and <em>shatters</em>.</p><p>She doesn't hear what Sasha says, or what Alden says in response. </p><p>Lani comes back to herself when Sasha gets shoved against the wall. The brick wall. Hard. </p><p>Sasha shoves him back, and this boy. This homophobic asshole<em> hits </em>him.</p><p>People call her a sweet girl all the time.</p><p>She is not sweet when she punches Eric in the face.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>now:</em>
</p><p>They walk out with a week-long suspension, but Eric and Alden have a week of suspension, two weeks of detention after that, and a firm warning that any hint of bullying in the future will result in expulsion. </p><p>Alfred keeps his serious expression until they get in the car. </p><p>He smiles as he looks at them in the rearview mirror. </p><p>"So, how about getting some ice cream?"</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>title from Mean by Taylor Swift</p><p>@tradrishanally please don't kill me i warned you this was gonna be a sad</p></blockquote></div></div>
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